With the pole position in hand for tomorrow’s Irwin Tools Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway, Denny Hamlin is looking forward to trying to end what has been a tough stretch of races for him in recent times.

Results from the last nine events have been quite mediocre for the driver of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Since logging an eighth-place finish at Pocono in June, Hamlin has not finished higher than 18th (Indianapolis) with three DNFs along the way.

That’s made him vow to be, in his words, “as aggressive as [he] possibly can to get a win” tomorrow in Thunder Valley. But, being the good teammate, he also wants to help JGR compatriots Matt Kenseth and Kyle Busch as they look to maintain their places in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

“Our job for the rest of the year is to do what we can for our teammates, for our manufacturers to try to be a guinea pig if we need to — whatever it takes to get a championship for Toyota or Joe Gibbs Racing,” said Hamlin.

“We’re going to try to sacrifice. We pay the price for that sometimes with results, but my job — I’ve had teammates who have not been part of the Chase before and I’ve asked them to try different things, so we’ve got to be that guy now.”

Hamlin threw down a lap at 128.969 miles per hour to earn the pole for tomorrow’s 500-lap event ahead of five-time Bristol winner Kurt Busch (128.770 mph), who is looking to strengthen his chances of making the Chase while talk continues to swirl about which team he’ll end up with in 2014.

“You know, it’s like a checklist that you go through each time you get in the car,” said Busch. “One of those items is to just block out the outside world and know that what is at hand right now is a qualifying run.

“Tomorrow is 500 laps at Bristol, where I have to protect my car and make sure we don’t try to push any issues on restarts. And then to have the outside guys knocking on the door going, ‘Hey we want you to drive,’ – it’s a good confidence booster, to say the least.”